Quote:
Originally Posted by ?dentist?
Everhopeful, I see from your sig you are about to start second year of med i presume. If you don't mind me asking, how much of a bursary do you get in 1st and 2nd year? I know you get quite a lot in years 3 to 5 but don't know much about 1 and 2. Also, does the RAF pay your fees aswell and do you get extra money for textbooks? Finally, how many years do you have to commit minimum after graduate? Is it 6 years? If so, does this start after completing of FY2?
If I do apply in the coming years it would be as a dentist and possibly to RN but assuming at the mo it is much the same for both careers and all armed forces.
Thankyou very much!
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Hi there. In the first two years you get 4K each year, but apply early once you have an offer as it takes some months to get through the paper sift and get a date for the selection board at OASC. I think that fees aren't paid unless you have entered the cadetship, and believe that a book allowance applies then, but this is based on talking to past cadets and not in the paperwork I've signed. As a bursar you automatically get put forward for selection to the cadetship scheme (in fact it's obligatory) and the hope is that as long as you've got the right attitude, show an interest in a forces career (by knowing what your career route entails) and have a reasonable academic record then you should get picked up for the cadet scheme. The 6 yr return of service commences from GMC registration, so from the end of F1. You used to be able to do your F1/F2 in your choice of deanery but it's recently changed to being done in military hospitals. At the end of that you do your SERE course (special entrants and re-entrants) which includes docs, dentists, vicars and previously serving officers re-entering after a break of service. That course is 13 weeks. Then you do a stint of familiarisation at an RAF station, then it depends on whether you're going GP or specialism. The caveat being that your career route has to be amenable to the service you've signed up to, hence if they need only GPs then that's what you'll train as. If you don't like this idea you can choose to leave, but you're required to repay your cadetship funding.
Hope that's useful..
To be honest I've done quite some time in the military already so it's a known quantity to me, and I've been on operations in various places and see the ups and downs of a life in forces quite realistically. Oh, and I think whilst you're training as a GP that you can't be deployed into operational theatre (ie Iraq/Afghanistan), that's certainly what I was advised by a currently serving GP trainee.
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